Heart palpitations

I have always had heart palpitations since I was a child. Maybe 5-6 episodes a years and it would always be a couple in a row then nothing. When I got pregnant I started to notice I would get them more. Sometimes I would have them for an hour every 5 mins, but it would still only be a couple at a time. I went to the heart doc. and they did a ekg and a heart ultrasound. Everything came back normal and the doc. said that some people are more apt to get them than others. My mom even had them. I do have really bad anxiety and my heart always seams to be beating faster than normal around 90-100 beat per min.. I also focus on health stuff and get anxiety about it, so I know that all this doesnt help me. After giving birth I still get them and last night after drinking 5 beers I started to get them avery 5 mins. for over an hour. Question is, should I be concerned?

I can understand your feeling anxious when you have palpitations. It is disconcerting to have your heart have irregularities. There are things which can aggravate this including alcohol and caffein so if you have a tendency for having palpitations you should avoid these. These things can actually cause palpitations in many people.

I should say here as a disclaimer... I am not an expert on palpitations but I have had them from low potassiium and also from medications that had those as a side effect and from having too high a dose of my thyroid replacement.

There are many conditions that could predispose someone to palpitations. This is not a complete list but high thyroid, dysautonomia, hormone imblances, low potassium, medications, and mitral valve prolapse are included in this list. Tests to rule out causes would be normally done by a doctor evauating you.. I think peace-of-mind would come with having certain things ruled out by appropriate testing. I am sending you a link that talks about the evaluation and diagnosing of what causes palpitations and anxiety.

As you noted having palpitations can cause anxiety. One of the articles addresses how to lessen the actual anxiety. I have noted that there are threads on this forum under dysautonomia, expert forum on cardiology, and on the anxiety forum that address palpitations and anxiety. You can access those by sleuthing those sites or by putting those words in the "search conditions and treatments" bar above.

I found really good articles on palpitations+alcohol, palpitations+anxiety, andpalpitaions+dysautonomia by putting each of those into the search bar on a search engine. Unfortunately this site isn't letting me put links here but you can easily go to a search engine and put these words in and find an abundance of articles.

I hope you are successful at finding the cause of your palpitations and can lessen the chance of having them through avoiding triggers. Marie

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